In The Gifted:
How to Live the Life of Your Dreams author, speaker and licensed
psychotherapist Daphne Michaels celebrates the nine gifts that are our
birthright, guiding readers in how to recognize and use them to transform their
lives. In her author's preface, Michaels reveals how her own journey of
life transformation began when she was young and realized that human existence
wore two conflicting faces--one of love and joy, and one of fear and despair.
She decided then to commit her life to reconciling these two visions because
she knew that, irreconcilable though they seemed, together these two faces held
the secret to living a life of endless possibility and authentic happiness. Her
personal journey and formal education in social science, human services and
integral psychology led to the founding of the Daphne Michaels Institute, which
has helped hundreds of men and women design the lives of their dreams.

In The Gifted
Michaels shows us that the first three “gifts” we must recognize and embrace
within us if we are to re-design our lives are Awareness,Potential
and Stillness. These three allow us to identify and use the remaining
six with a life-changing power: Disharmony, Harmony, Ease, Clarity,
Freedom and Engagement. Each of these six relies on the
“essential three” for its own power to change our lives, and each has its own
gifts--its “children.” By approaching the nine gifts with real-world metaphors,
Michaels answers in easily understood ways what for many readers have been
lingering questions about personal transformation—such as how it works, what
kind of commitment it takes, and why, if we’re committed, real transformation
becomes inevitable—and addresses obstacles that readers may have encountered in
the past in trying to reach in life a happiness every human deserves.

While the human
universe’s face of love is celebrated in The Gifted, so is the face of
fear that haunted a young girl decades ago. As Michaels shows us in her book,
even Disharmony—the “quagmire” of life born of the human ego’s fear,
defenses, delusions and despair—is a gift, too, and one as important as the
others if we know how to see it clearly and use it. Once we understand
Disharmony, we are ready to understand the real purpose of Harmony in our
lives. Disharmony does not need to rule us. It is ours to use as we
design the lives of our dreams.

The final gift in The
Gifted, Michaels tells us, is the gift of Engagement.
Engagement—with the universe and with ourselves—allows us to use all of the
other gifts with more power and joy than we ever imagined possible.

That mountaintop
decision never left me. It drove my life’s work and over the years led me to
understand that there are gifts – nine of them, in fact – that we are all born
with but rarely experience in their full glory and potential. These gifts
– which make each and every one of us “The Gifted” of this book’s title – are
the keys to living lives of endless possibilities and, in turn, achieving an
authentic happiness that cannot be lost. They are, in other words, the
keys to achieving the life of our dreams.

Book Excerpt:

Life’s
greatest mystery is inside us. It is inside every living thing. Like the deep
secrets of the universe, the mystery inside us will never be fully explained.
By exploring it, however, we can discover gifts available to us that can change
our lives forever.

Life’s
great mystery is awareness. More basic than thoughts and more primal
than instincts, awareness does not require a centralized brain, as scientists
have proven through studies with invertebrates like starfish. While these beautiful
creatures have no centralized brains, they possess awareness. Starfish,
like all invertebrates, use awareness to perceive, eat, grow, reproduce, and
survive.

Awareness is
so intrinsic to life that it defines life: living means being aware.
From the beginning of life – before we take an initial breath – humans
demonstrate tremendous awareness. Prenatal psychologists have discovered that
we experience, while still in our mother’s womb, not only light and sound but,
even more astonishingly, emotion. We kick our legs when agitated by loud
noises and sway pleasantly to beautiful classical music. Months before birth we
grimace at the taste of sour amniotic fluid and drink heartily when it is
sweet. Awareness grows as we grow.

As
we develop as human beings, our awareness stretches in all directions – from
awareness of our five basic senses to awareness of external events around us,
from awareness of our emotions to awareness of our thoughts, from limited
awareness of a topic that bores us to an expanded awareness of topics we feel
passionate about. Of all the many dimensions of awareness, the highest form is self-awareness.
With self-awareness we begin to appreciate just how far awareness actually
extends. Just as ocean waters are deeper than the surface of the sea, awareness
is deeper than the surface of our physical body or our conscious thoughts. The
infinite depth and breadth of awareness is filled with gifts that are ours
to receive.

It is 741. After subduing the pagan religions in the east, halting the
march of Islam in the west, and conquering the continent for the Merovingian
kings, mayor of the palace Charles the Hammer has one final ambition—the
throne. Only one thing stands in his way—he is dying.

Charles cobbles together a plan to divide the kingdom among his three
sons, betroth his daughter to a Lombard prince to
secure his southern border, and keep the Church unified behind them through his
friend Bishop Boniface. Despite his best efforts, the only thing to reign after
Charles’s death is chaos. His daughter has no intention of marrying anyone, let
alone a Lombard prince. His two eldest sons question the rights of
their younger pagan stepbrother, and the Church demands a steep price for their
support. Son battles son, Christianity battles paganism, and Charles’s daughter
flees his court for an enemy’s love.

Book Excerpt:

No one saw the second beast charge. It, too, followed the path of
the V, although this time no shields were banged and no spears were thrown. The
large animal crashed through the wood unchecked, heading directly for Odilo and
Trudi. They, like everyone else, had been watching the fallen knight and
remained unaware of the danger until the boar lunged at them.

Without a word, Odilo stepped to the right. Trudi spun away to her
left. Then, in a fluid motion, their arms lifted and fell together, impaling
the beast between them. It twisted under their spears, thrashing wildly as
neither blow was a killing stroke. Odilo leaned down on the shaft of his spear,
trying to drive its point further into the animal’s shoulder. As he pushed into
the animal, it surged forward in an attempt to gore his leg. Trudi, having lost
hold of her spear, drew her sword. The blade flashed above her head. She
brought it down on the beast’s neck with both hands, severing its head in one
stroke.

The hunters were stunned into silence. Blood spewed over Trudi’s
legs and pooled at her feet. With a visceral shout Odilo swept Trudi into his
arms and raised her hand high above their heads. The knights cheered and banged
their spears against their shields. Odilo bowed theatrically to Trudi and the
cheers grew louder.

He had never seen a woman wield a sword like
that. Her strength and speed surprised him. She laughed, embarrassed at the
applause, and he found it oddly compelling that she could be both strong and
vulnerable. He studied the lines of her face and the curl of her hair. He took
in the fullness of her lips and the light in her eyes. She was powerful, he
realized unexpectedly, and quite beautiful.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

It's so sad to see our authors go, but in tribute we do a recap of the highlights of their blog tour with us at Pump Up Your Book. Today we're highlighting Kevin Bohacz and his Immortality Virtual Book Publicity Tour. I am thrilled to say he's now a #1 Amazon Bestselling Author. Kevin, you rock!About the Author:

I am Kevin Bohacz the bestselling novelist of Immortality and a lucid
dreamer…

Welcome to my dreams. I am also a writer for national computer
magazines, founder and president of two high technology corporations, a
scientist and engineer for over 35 years, and the inventor of an
advanced electric car system – the ESE Engine System (circa 1978). I was
also a short order cook for I-Hop, flipped burgers at McDonalds, and
delivered Chicken Delight. All of those careers and more are behind me
now that I am a full time storyteller, a catcher of dreams. Thank you
for reading my stories and making this all possible.

Without warning, something has gone terribly awry. In the remote and
unnoticed places of the world, small pockets of death begin occurring.
As the initially isolated extinctions spread, the world’s eyes focus on
this unimaginable horror and chaos. Out of the ecological imbalance,
something new and extraordinary is evolving and surviving to fill the
voids left by these extinctions. Evolution is operating in ways no one
could have expected and environmental damage may be the catalyst. Once
discovered, this knowledge changes everything.

Virtual Book Tour Highlights:

Praise for Immortality:

"Is this a roaring good story that will keep you highly interested in
what is going to happen next? You betcha! I am so looking forward to
the next book in this series."

"This is a science fiction novel of a doomsday scenario that will leave
you shaken. Only after having finished this book was I able to see a
lot of similarities to Biblical stories which made it even more
frightening if possible--and in some ways more believable. I certainly
hope this NEVER happens!!"

"It's an "end of the world" type book with a twist and will leave you
wondering about this "new type of apocalypse". I have read all kinds of
ways that mankind ends but this one is definitely new. It also of
course, brings out the bad side of the ones that are left and even
drives one of the main characters insane to the point of forming his own
army to fight against the people he thinks is responsible for this
whole mess."

"I love a good apocalyptic story and Immortality certainly lived up to my expectations. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Ghost of the Gods."

-- A Book Geek (click here to read more)""Immortality" is a great read. It is seldom I read a book that makes me
feel as though I've grown smarter for having read it. Before this book,
Michael Crichton is one of the very few writers I have ever had that
'boy, I am smart for reading and enjoying this book" feeling. Bohacz has
now been added to the list of top favorite authors. I cannot wait for
the sequel.."

"Immortality is an intelligently written, engaging work that is
well-researched. Kevin Bohacz writes in great detail about the
characters and events in this book. I can’t wait to find out what
happens – and am looking forward to the sequel, Ghost Of The Gods!"-- Create With Joy (click here to read more)Memorable Quotes:"I’ve been writing since 1989. Immortality and Ghost of the Gods are my 3rd and 4th novels. The
short answer to your question is the ideas come from my muse. The longer answer
is that my novels come from daytime dreams as well as nighttime lucid dreams. When
I am writing it does not feel like I am creating the material. It feels more
like I am watching daydreams which come from somewhere other than me and I am
merely typing as fast as I can to capture the daydream that is unfolding before
my mind’s eyes. "

"I knew Immortality was a timely, entertaining, and
marketable novel. Some extremely successful literary professionals,
including more than one famous writer, had read it and told me they
loved it. So here I was a published author unable to open a single door
into the major publishing houses. Three years later I had reached the
point where I either had to give up or publish it myself. Back in 2006
self-publishing carried the stigma of failure, but I had no choice. I
knew in my gut Immortality was a fantastic story. So I started a small publishing company, hired an offset-printer, and proceeded to manufacture and sell Immortality."

It's so sad to see our authors go, but in tribute we do a recap of the highlights of their blog tour with us at Pump Up Your Book. Today we're highlighting Christopher Zoukis and his Directory of Federal Prisons Virtual Book Publicity Tour. About the Author:

Christopher Zoukis is an impassioned advocate for prison
education, a legal scholar, and a prolific writer of books, book
reviews, and articles. His articles on

prison education and prison law
appear frequently in Prison Legal News, and have been published in The
Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, Blog Critics, and Midwest Book
Review, among other national, regional, and specialty publications.

Mr. Zoukis is often quoted on matters concerning prison law, criminal
law, prisoners’ rights, and prison education. Recently, he was the
focus of an article at Salon.com concerning America’s broken criminal
justice system and potential solutions to the current crisis.

Radic is a comprehensive, yet
succinct, guide to the contact information and basic character profile
information of every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, plus
all private prisons under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to
house federal inmates.

It is an essential guide for everyone who knows anyone incarcerated
within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and sets the standard for basic
character profiles and contact information for the Federal Bureau of
Prisons.

This electronic guidebook enables attorneys, family members and
friends of federal prisoners, journalists, government officials, prison
volunteers, and members of the general public to quickly locate the
contact information and inmate correspondence address of every prison
within the Federal Bureau of Prisons and every private prison which
houses federal inmates.

Virtual Book Tour Highlights:

"My career as a writer has largely revolved around America's criminal
justice system because I, in fact, am a federal prisoner. I am
currently incarcerated at FCI Petersburg, a medium-security federal
prison in Petersburg, Virginia. Due to my experiences with the Federal
Bureau of Prisons, a need was revealed. Prisoners are so often cut off
from their families and loved ones due to restrictive correspondence
policies. Likewise, it is a nightmare for journalists and reporters to
obtain even basic information about the various Federal Bureau of
Prisons' facilities. Thus this genre and the Directory of Federal
Prisons. I aim to connect people, plain and simple."

-- Virginia Beach Publishing Examiner (click here to read more) "High-security
institutions, also known as United States Penitentiaries (USPs), have
highly-secured perimeters (featuring walls or reinforced fences), multiple- and
single-occupant cell housing, the highest staff-to-inmate ratio, and close
control of inmate movement."

"The idea for the Directory of Federal Prisons
was a natural outgrowth of my prison education and prisoners' rights
advocacy. In my work, I regularly field questions from prisoners'
families, friends, attorneys, and even journalists who either need to
get in contact with a federal prisoner or are in search of basic
character profile information about a specific federal prison. In an
effort to help these diverse groups -- and more importantly, help keep
families together -- I decided to compile the Directory of Federal Prisons.
The goal was to produce a product which would help connect people
outside of federal prison with those inside. I believe that this goal
has been accomplished."

"There are few aspects of life that we hold so dear than the nearly
instantaneous contact we have with our friends and loved ones. Mothers
like to know that they can call their daughters on their cell phones to
ensure that they are on their way home from school. Fathers like to call
their sons to find out what parking lot to pick them up at when at the
mall. And friends constantly text, instant message, and email about
everything imaginable. This is the world we live in, and it has changed
drastically with the technological revolution."

"The family members and friends of federal prisoners confined within the
Federal Bureau of Prisons are a silent yet growing population in the
United States. As of December 2013, there were almost 218,000 federal
prisoners housed across the United States in 189 federal facilities and
15 private prisons. None of these federal prison inmates have access to
a cell phone. None can accept calls, they must place them at terminals
in their housing units. And none of them have access to regular email,
instead they must use a restricted and scaled down service —
Corrlinks.com and the BOP’s Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System
(TRULINCS) — to send messages back and forth. Their use of these
communications can be prohibitively expensive, at a cost more than many
make from their institutional work assignments each month."

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Leonard H. Roller was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He holds a BA
degree in journalism from New YorkUniversity, an MA in
comparative literature from ColumbiaUniversity. He has worked
as an actor and public relations executive whose clients included such stars as
Audrey Hepburn, Kirk Douglas, Joan Crawford, Paul Newman, and others. He’s been
a communications consultant for Lockheed, Mattel, and Hilton Hotels and
Resorts. He has served as a French translator for the U. S. Army in France, where he spent
leave time climbing in the Alps. The author of a communications
training text The Profits of Persuasion(International Resources, 1986), his poems have been published in The
Lyric, Pearl, The Storyteller, Deronda Review, Ancient Paths, Snowy Egret,
Space and Time Magazine, Thema, California Quarterly, and many others.

Welcome to the book club today,
Leonard. Your poetry is definitely fascinating. When did you begin
to write poetry?

Leonard: when I was six years old - an ode
to spring. Only five lines but fairly lyrical for a

six-year-old.

Where do you get most of your inspiration
from?

Leonard: From God -- and I'm not kidding. Stuff just
pops into my head - usually by some strange route from my heart.

Here’s a strange analogy and you can let me
know if you agree with it or not, but when I’m happy I can’t write poetry but
when I’m sad, that’s the greatest piece of work I’ve ever written. Do you
write when you’re happy, sad or both?

Leonard: I'm usually numb. Only kidding. Although
I've written poems when I'm happy,l it's usually when I am sad or angry. Anger
is a great kindler of poetry for me.

What do you think is the best piece of
poetry you have written? Would you like to share it with us?

Leonard:The one I haven't written yet. Of
those I have written so far I don't exactly play favorites. One I like, from my
book "Darklight" is:

At the heart of every sun the blackness,

At
the heart of every joy the fear,

At the heart of each black hole imprisoned light.

The universe obsessed by warring day and night.

That was beautiful. Where did you get
the inspiration for it?

Leonard: From the universe.

What other books of poetry have you
published?

Leonard: "The Profits of
Persuasion," a text on spoken and media communications for spokespersons.

Title: Book of DreamsAuthor: Sylvie MichaudGenre: Children’s bedtime storiesPaperback: 24 pagesPublisher: Crafty Canuck, Inc. (March 28, 2012)ISBN-13: 978-0-9782955-8-5 (Print Soft Cover)Kindle: B00BTPBX0QPurchase at AMAZONBook of Dreams sees Baby Raccoon’s parents use clouds to share their dreams of a better future. In the story, Mama and Papa use clouds to share their dreams about a healthy planet and vibrant future for Baby Ringtail. In the book, Baby Ringtail asks Mama and Papa, “Why is every cloud a different shape?” “Clouds are pictures in the sky that help us dream,” Mama Ringtail replies.

Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE

Tracey Warren has everything an eighteen year old girl should. She lives
a life of expectancies; go to school, please her parents, party with friends,
and revel in life as a young adult. That is until she experiences an unexpected
life changing accident caused by Nathan Newcomb; an illegally attractive yet
perplexed guy who has her fumbling over her words and cracking her head on the
concrete. In being enthralled by his overwhelming existence, Tracey neglects
his promise of death (which never falls short of Nathan) and in ignoring his
guarantee, she chooses to give into love over sanity and risks her life for the
opportunity of being with him.

Nathan, knowing the risks gives into this want to have Tracey presuming
it may be better to jeopardize their possible ending, than to allow her to
endure the pain of his devoid. Nonetheless, with him being a burdened Sephlem,
not only are they burdened by their adversaries who will risk everything but
the exposure of their existence to see Nathan fall. But Nathan and Tracey come
to find that their most sinister enemies lie under their same roof and
regrettably share the same bloodline.

Book Excerpt:

The last week before a break, Mrs. Kimble’s class always
lasts forever! I cannot wait for this week to be over. It’s almost spring
break—the next best thing to look forward to, apart from summer. It’s the start
of the warming days, when we can lose the coats and start letting some skin
show. That earthy scent comes back, due to the freshly bloomed flowers and
trees, and the newly grown grass.

Oh yeah, and the preeminent point—lack of class. My
impatience for graduation, in a few months, also grinds at the back of my head.

Still three days to go, until I can enjoy our week of no
school and not waking up early. Mrs. Kimble moves on to literary words that are
meant to capture your feelings when you speak. Yeah, only three more days—if I can ever get out of this long-ass
class!

I turn a quarter of the way to her, not wanting to draw
attention to us. “Nothing much. I haven’t put too much thought into it. What
about you?”

“Well, you know, Andrew Stevens is planning the next
break party, I think it is Friday at 9, or maybe 10.” She looks up to the
ceiling, then nods. “I heard it from Robert, in the hall.”

Break party, it’s what we call any party thrown the last
day of school and the opening of a break. It seems lame, thinking of it now. I
guess it serves its purpose though.

Intriguing, I think, as I speak. “Andrew is
not known for throwing parties, especially at his place—his mother would murder
him if she found out.”

“Well, he is apparently willing to risk it—that’s why
everyone is planning to go. It so has
to be worth it,” she chimes, in anticipation. “So yeah, very intriguing.”

“Tracey and Glen, is the talk of Andrew’s party more
important than the study going on in this English class?” Here she goes. Mrs.
Kimble, on another role of trying to embarrass her students by using her bionic
ears to ease-drop on their conversations.

Today, Tracey Warren and Glen Richards are on her hit
list.

“Of course not,
Mrs. Kimble!” Glen says with exaggeration. “Nothing
is more important than what is going on within your exceptional English class.” Glen is the best smart-ass in existence.
We have known each other since grade school. When her, her mom, and her older
sister moved to Bennington, here in Vermont, she walked into my classroom
and our third grade teacher assigned her the desk next to mine. I smiled at her
and she offered me one of her princess erasers. We have been tied at the hip
ever since.

“Now Glen, with your equipped sarcasm, you should try
directing your efforts more towards paying attention to your studies,” Mrs.
Kimble states calmly, while giving her a piercing look over the bridge of her
glasses, “rather than towards being a smart-aleck.”

We have gotten each other into hell, and she has been the
one to get us out; —in most cases. We are both eighteen, though she is a few
months older than me; yet, I’m taller than she is. While I have
dark-brown—almost black—hair, she has that pretty, sandy-brown hair that many
girls color their heads to achieve. Freckles cover her cheeks, and I have a
beauty mark resting aside my left eye. We both have curvy shapes that pull eyes
as we walk, and Glen flaunts hers with an ‘I got it, girl’ attitude.

“Smart-Aleck!”
Glen gasps. “Mrs. Kimble,” she says,
slowly and with emphasis, “now, with your high expectations of me, you know I
wouldn’t dare. I love being one of the students you go home thinking of, how
you can make me into a better person before I leave this school.” She flashes
her pearly whites and winks at Mrs. Kimble.

The other students in the class snicker and shake their
heads. Mrs. Kimble—for a moment—only glares at Glen. The bell rings loudly,
jarring her attention.

That bell may take forever to ring, but it is always
right – on – time! Gathering my things, all I hear is giggling, rambles, and
shuffling from the other students trying to rush from the classroom. Looking at
each other, Glen and I attempt to make a run for it.

The last thing I need is for Mrs. Kimble to desire to
keep me in this classroom any longer than the hour I already had to suffer
through.

From the multi award-winning, best-selling
author of four books, including Here, Home, Hope, a gripping and heart
wrenching novel about a young mother who has it all. The only problem is she
may be dying.

In her previous works including All the
Difference, Rouda's characters "sparkle with humor and heart,"
and the stories are "told with honest insight and humor" (Booklist).

"Inspirational and engaging" (ForeWord), these are the novels
you'll turn to for strong female characters and an "engaging read" (Kirkus).

In the Mirror is the story of Jennifer Benson, a woman
who seems to have it all. Diagnosed with cancer, she enters an experimental
treatment facility to tackle her disease the same way she tackled her life -
head on. But while she's busy fighting for a cure, running her business,
planning a party, staying connected with her kids, and trying to keep her
sanity, she ignores her own intuition and warnings from others and reignites an
old relationship best left behind.

If you knew you might die, what choices
would you make? How would it affect your marriage? How would you live each day?
And how would you say no to the one who got away?

Book Excerpt:

Rolling over to get out of bed, I caught a
glimpse of myself in the mirror and cringed. My reflection said it all.
Everything had changed.

I looked like death.

I blinked, moving my gaze from the mirror, and
noticed the calendar. It was Monday again. That meant everything in the real
world. It meant groaning about the morning and getting the kids off to school.
It meant struggling to get to the office on time and then forcing yourself to move
through the day. It meant the start of something new and fresh and
undetermined. But Mondays meant nothing at Shady Valley. We lived in the
“pause” world, between “play” and “stop.” Suspension was the toughest part for
me. And loneliness. Sure, I had visitors, but it wasn’t the same as being
surrounded by people in motion. I’d been on fast-forward in the real world,
juggling two kids and my business, struggling to stay connected to my husband,
my friends. At Shady Valley, with beige-colored day after cottage-cheese-tasting
day, my pace was, well –

I had to get moving.

I supposed my longing for activity was behind my
rather childish wish to throw a party for myself. At least it gave me a mission
of sorts. A delineation of time beyond what the latest in a long line of cancer
treatments dictated. It had been more than 18 months of treatments, doctor’s
appointments, hospitalizations and the like. I embraced the solidity of a
deadline. The finality of putting a date on the calendar and knowing that at
least this, my party, was something I could control.

I noticed the veins standing tall and blue and
bubbly atop my pale, bony hands. I felt a swell of gratitude for the snakelike
signs of life, the entry points for experimental treatments; without them, I’d
be worse than on pause by now.

I pulled my favorite blue sweatshirt over my head
and tugged on my matching blue sweatpants.

Moving at last, I brushed my teeth and then
headed next door to Ralph’s. He was my best friend at Shady Valley—a special
all-suite, last-ditch-effort experimental facility for the sick and dying—or at
least he had been until I began planning my party. I was on his last nerve with
this, but he’d welcome the company, if not the topic. He was paused too.

My thick
cotton socks helped me shuffle across my fake wood floor, but it was slow going
once I reached the grassy knoll—the leaf-green carpet that had overgrown the
hallway. An institutional attempt at Eden, I supposed. On our good days, Ralph
and I sometimes sneaked my son’s plastic bowling set out there to partake in
vicious matches. We had both been highly competitive, type-A people in the
“real” world and the suspended reality of hushed voices and tiptoeing relatives
was unbearable at times.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three choices,” I said,
reaching Ralph’s open door. “’Please come celebrate my life on the eve of my
death. RSVP immediately. I’m running out of time.’”

“Oh, honestly,” Ralph said, rolling his head back
onto the pillows propping him up. I knew my time in Shady Valley was only
bearable because of this man, his humanizing presence. Even though we both
looked like shadows of our outside, real-world selves, we carried on a
relationship as if we were healthy, alive. I ignored the surgery scars on his
bald, now misshapen head. He constantly told me I was beautiful. It worked for
us.

“You don’t have to be so testy. Do you want me to
leave?” I asked, ready to retreat back to my room.

“No, come in. Let’s just talk about something
else, OK, beautiful?”

Ralph was lonely, too. Friends from his days as
the city’s most promising young investment banker had turned their backs—they
didn’t or couldn’t make time for his death. His wife, Barbara, and their three
teenage kids were his only regular visitors. Some days, I felt closer to Ralph
than to my own family, who seemed increasingly more absorbed in their own lives
despite weekly flowers from Daddy and dutiful visits from Henry, my husband of
six years. Poor Henry. It was hard to have meaningful visits at Shady Valley,
with nurses and treatments and all manner of interruptions. We still held hands
and kissed, but intimacy—even when I was feeling up to it—was impossible.

So, there we were, Ralph and I, two near-death
invalids fighting for our lives and planning a party to celebrate that fact. It
seemed perfectly reasonable, at least to me, because while I knew I should be
living in the moment, the future seemed a little hazy without a party to focus
on.

“Seriously, I need input on my party invitations.
It’s got to be right before I hand it over to Mother. I value your judgment, Ralph;
is that too much to ask?”

“For God’s sake, let me see them.” Ralph snatched
the paper out of my hand. After a moment, he handed it back to me. “The last
one’s the best. The others are too, well, self-pitying and stupid. Are you sure
you can’t just have a funeral like the rest of us?”

I glared at him, but agreed, “That’s my favorite,
too.”

Mr. & Mrs. E. David
Wells

request your presence at a

celebration in honor of
their daughter

Jennifer Wells Benson

Please see insert for your
party time

Shady Valley Center

2700 Hocking Ridge Road

RSVP to Mrs. Juliana Duncan
Wells

No gifts please—donations to
breast cancer research appreciated.

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At first,
I had been incredibly angry about the cancer. Hannah’s birth, so joyous, had
marked the end of my life as a “normal” person. Apparently, it happened a lot.
While a baby’s cells multiplied, the mom’s got into the act, mutating, turning
on each other. Hannah was barely two weeks old when I became violently ill. My
fever was 105 degrees when we arrived in the ER. I think the ER doctors
suspected a retained placenta or even some sort of infectious disease, although
I was so feverish I can’t remember much from that time. All I remember was the
feeling of being cut off from my family—Henry, two-year-old Hank, and newborn Hannah—and
marooned on the maternity ward, a place for mothers-to-be on bed rest until
their due dates. That was hell.

At 33, I was a pathetic sight. My headache was so
intense the curtains were drawn at all times. I didn’t look pregnant anymore,
so all the nurses thought my baby had died. That first shift tip-toed around
me, murmuring. By the second night, one of them posted a sign: “The baby is
fine. Mother is sick.” It answered their questions since I couldn’t. It hurt my
head too much to try.

By the third day, my headache had receded to a
dull roar. Surgery revealed that there was no retained placenta after all. I
was ready to go home to my newborn and my life. So with a slight fever and no
answers, I escaped from the hospital and went home to a grateful Henry and a
chaotic household. I was weak and tired, but everyone agreed that was to be
expected. I thanked God for the millionth time for two healthy kids and my
blessed, if busy, life.

After a fake food poisoning incident in L.A., Bailey Sterling's dreams of becoming a
caterer to the stars collapse faster than a soufflé. Now Bailey's face is in
all the gossip rags and her business is in ruins. But the Sterling women close ranks and bring her back to Icicle Falls, where she'll stay with her sister
Cecily.

All goes well between the sisters until Bailey comes up with a new business
idea—a tea shop on a charming street called Lavender Lane. She's going into partnership with Todd
Black, who—it turns out—is the man Cecily's started dating. It looks to Cecily
as if there's more than tea brewing in that cute little shop. And she's not
pleased.

Wait! Isn't Cecily seeing Luke Goodman? He's a widower with an adorable little
girl, and yes, Cecily does care about him. But Todd's the one who sends her
zing-o-meter off the charts. So now what? Should you have to choose between
your sister and the man you love (or think you love)?

Book Excerpt:

The party was going perfectly until
the hostess clutched her stomach with an agonized cry and crumpled to the floor
in a heap.

Rory Rourke, her boyfriend and star
of the new TV series Man Handled, knelt by her side and barked,
“Someone, call 911.”

“Call her doctor,” said someone
else.

“Call The Star Reporter,”
the victim said faintly.

And that was when Bailey Sterling
knew she was in trouble.

She’d been so excited to land this
gig catering Samba Barrett’s party. Samba wasn’t an Emma Stone or Kristen
Stewart but she was .... someone. Sort of. And with her catlike green eyes and
red hair everyone said she was on her way up, like the rest of her party
guests. And surely that had meant Bailey was on her way up, too. The West
Hollywood apartment had been packed with hot young actors and
actresses. As she’d slipped among them bearing trays of goodies she’d heard
more than one person rave about the food and had envisioned a whole string of
catering gigs after this one.

The shrimp salsa in Phyllo cups had
been an especially big hit. “Oh, my God, this is to die for,” America Winston
(from the new reality show Hard Ass) had raved. Bailey had smiled
modestly and kept circulating, while her assistant Giorgio served up stuffed
mushrooms. She’d been working hard for the last three years to earn a
reputation as caterer to the stars and things were finally starting to happen.

Except now here was Samba Barrett,
writhing on her living room floor, groaning in agony. Only twenty minutes ago
she’d been eating those shrimp cups and laughing. Did she have food allergies
she hadn’t told Bailey about? Samba had gone over the menu with Bailey,
approved everything. How could this have happened? Was Bailey going to be known
as killer of the stars?

Thirty people gathered around the
actress, some offering advice, some taking pictures with their cell phones,
others texting wildly. Bailey stood on the fringe and nervously downed one of
her own appetizers.

“You’ll be okay, baby,” Rory Rourke
assured Samba.

“I think I ate something bad,” she
whimpered.

“Oh, no, that’s not possible,”
Bailey protested and everyone turned to look at her. One woman aimed her cell
phone at Bailey, capturing her miserable expression. This couldn’t be
happening.

But it could. And it did. Now
Bailey felt sick. She lost her grip on the tray of canapes she was carrying and
down they went, the tray landing on a Jimmy Choos of one of the party guests
who was busy recording her hostess’s misery on her cell phone.

The woman let out a yelp and jumped
back, then glared at Bailey.

“Sorry,” Bailey muttered, and bent
to scoop the mess onto the tray. In the process she managed to get in the way
of another guest, nearly tripping him.

He didn’t settle for glaring. He
swore at her.

Caterer hell, that was what this
was. Bailey bolted for the kitchen and hid out, watching the drama unfold from
behind the counter.